


[ficlet] Polar Opposites

by noodlefrog



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Bears, Crack, Ficlet, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, I don't know if that tag is for animals or people sorry, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, Penguins, Polar Bears - Freeform, Zoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23125726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlefrog/pseuds/noodlefrog
Summary: Crowley is a penguin. Aziraphale is a polar bear. They're different species from opposite poles, but no one in this zoo can stop them from trying to be together....It's a thousand words of fluffy crack. I don't know what else to tell you.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 131
Kudos: 399
Collections: Polar Opposites





	[ficlet] Polar Opposites

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be writing historical pining but a conversation in the Good Omens Event discord grabbed me by the throat tonight and now here we are. 
> 
> **~~Blame~~ Credit for this idea goes to:**  
> [curtaincall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtaincall/pseuds/curtaincall/works) for innocuously saying, "good omens where everything's the same but crowley's a penguin".  
> [elizabethelizabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethelizabeth/pseuds/elizabethelizabeth/works) of Snekley fame for kicking off the penguin Crowley ("Pengley") DTIYS that made the chat go feral.  
> [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/works) for suggesting that Aziraphale should be a polar bear in this AU, and spawning the title "Polar Opposites."  
> &  
> Everyone who screamed " _oh my god they were zoo mates_ " at the same terrifying instant.

“ _Gaaaabe._ ” The voice that droned out of his walkie-talkie and shattered his early morning peace was accompanied by a high feedback buzz that had him scrabbling for the volume knob. “ _GAAAABE._ ”

Rolling his eyes, Gabe held down the button. “What.”

“ _The penguin is out again._ ”

“Get him yourself, Bee. That little demon bit me last time. Besides, I’m busy with the...” He looked around for the nearest exhibit. “Lemurs.”

A dry, flat laugh crackled through the speaker. “ _Coward. He’s… what? As heavy as a fat cat? Maybe less?_ ”

“I don’t care how much he weighs. He’s an asshole. Can’t you ask Uriel?”

“ _Uriel’s out today. And I really need someone to go in there with me._ ”

Gabe was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this whole situation.

“Go _in_ there?” he repeated. “Go in _where_?”

There was a pause, then a sigh. “ _He finally got into the other enclosure. I need you to help distract the bear so I can get him out._ ”

“Can’t we just let Aziraphale eat him?” Gabe asked, hopeful. “We could call it… enrichment.”

It was always hard to tell if Bee was amused when they spoke, or if they were amused at his expense.

“ _I suggested it the last time we caught him trying to sneak in. The Director said no. Besides, there’s a school group here today. We don’t want to make the news for letting a polar bear eat one of the penguins in front of a bunch of eleven year olds._ ”

“Oh, but it’s fine if he eats me?”

“ _Just get over here, Gabe._ ”

“Okaaaaay,” he groaned, then closed out of Instagram to drive the golf cart back to the Polar Zone.

…

The Garden of Paradise Education Center and Zoo had played host to an illicit relationship for the past six years, and Gabe Angle wasn’t paid nearly enough to deal with it.

Crowley was a yellow-eyed penguin, _Megadyptes antipodes_ in Latin. _Megadick asspode_ , if you asked Gabe. The zoo had run a naming contest on Facebook when he’d hatched, and Gabe was convinced that the only reason he got that name was that the kid who suggested it was cute. That or someone stuffed the ballots, because what kind of stupid name is _Crowley_ for a penguin? He’s a penguin, not a crow, though Gabe would be the first to tell people he was terrible at _being_ a penguin.

The aggressive little shit was at the top of the penguin shaming board in the staff lounge every week. Constant escape attempts, and more than a few successes. When they did manage to keep him locked up, he was always making trouble. If he wasn’t stealing the other penguins’ fish, he was hissing at them or knocking them into the water. He also liked biting the keepers (especially Gabe), and could be counted on to hork up fish on his shoes whenever he wore the nice ones. A favorite pastime of Crowley’s was stealing from the guests who won the drawing to go inside the enclosure and help feed the penguins at lunch. Once, he stole a guest’s sunglasses right off of her face, and Gabe had been put in the position of having to reassure her that penguins couldn’t transmit rabies.

Naturally, Crowley was hated by almost everyone who spent much time with him, humans and penguins alike. Unnaturally, the only creature who _could_ tolerate him was Aziraphale the polar bear.

Aziraphale was a former exotic pet, bought as a cub by some rich weirdo with more money than sense. Some kind of Jesus freak, Gabe didn’t know the details, but they’d named their fluffy new ball of murder after some guy in the Bible. By the time he’d been seized by the police, he’d spent too much time around people to ever be released back in the wild, and so he’d found his way here. A lot of the other keepers liked him. He was docile and very food-motivated, and it seemed like his past owner had actually managed to teach him a couple of _tricks_. The only problem was that he seemed to be terrified of other bears. He had to be housed alone, as the past two attempts to set him up with a mate had resulted in him refusing to leave his indoor housing.

Aziraphale and Crowley had met in the zoo veterinarian’s office as juveniles. Crowley’s egg had been rejected, and they’d had to hatch him in an incubator. They fully expected him to imprint on the vet, or one of the keepers who fed him, but no. That would be too simple. Apparently, he’d imprinted on the newly donated polar bear cub that had been following the vet around begging for snacks, and _apparently_ it was mutual. Gabe had been shown some photos that were absolutely _not_ posted to the zoo’s social media of a grumpy-looking brown chick sleeping on a much bigger ball of white fuzz. Cute, but not the kind of thing that made the zoo look like it practiced responsible animal husbandry.

In Gabe’s opinion, it got less cute after they were older and were introduced to their proper habitats. It was honestly a little unsettling. Crowley spent all his non-bullying time standing up on the tallest rock in the penguin enclosure just… _staring_ through the glass barrier into the polar bear exhibit, oftentimes with a pilfered fish in his beak like he wanted to feed Aziraphale. It was an obsession.

There were near-daily escape attempts, and the keepers almost always recovered him flapping against the glass of Aziraphale’s habitat like he could climb it or fly over. Usually Aziraphale spent the afternoons after these episodes moping, upset that Crowley had been taken away, or else pacing back and forth in the enclosure like a bear on a mission.

But today… today, somehow, the little bastard had actually managed to get _in_. How he’d done it was beyond explanation. _Ineffable_ , as the Director liked to say. But as Gabe pulled up outside the polar bear exhibit, there was no mistaking it: the penguin and the polar bear were in the water feature together. Just floating there. Calm as anything.

Gabe felt his headache growing. The meeting about this was going to last until the world ended.

**Author's Note:**

> There were a lot of really great suggestions for penguin species, but I saw the species name ["Yellow-Eyed Penguin"](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Yellow-eyed_Penguin_crying_MC.jpg/800px-Yellow-eyed_Penguin_crying_MC.jpg) and lost it. Click that link and try not to imagine him screaming at God.
> 
> I've never worked in a zoo. Blease don't get on to me if I got something wrong, I'm basing all of this off of stories I've heard from friends who have worked in one & gumption.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Polar Opposites](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129164) by [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock)




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